Terry Goodkind – Amazing Author, troubling producer of promises

First I want to say that I honestly don’t believe the problem lies with Terry Goodkind, but rather with the team behind his online store. Last June 20th a special collectors edition of his self published book ‘The First Confesdor’ became available for purchase. We knew going in that it would take some time to produce and ship. Our updates were good and frequenly sent to our email addresses. Then things slowed down. Updates were less, lucky to receive an email, and when we did there was news of a problem putting the package together. Better updates were promised, but not fulfilled. A whisper of shipping possibly ready in January (7 months after purchase). Then a post in March from the team telling us to hang in there, orders are almost ready, updates again were promised, and we were left hanging once again. I’m May we received emails with tracking information and were excited, but ultimately let down. As three status of the tracking is still electronic shipping information received, one month later.

Posts are filling up his Facebook page, going unanswered, the event page had been abandoned by all but those of us that ordered. The hundred orders were promised and paid for by fans all across the world. Over $90,000 paid for this wonderful Collectors Edition. We sit patiently waiting, checking our emails, Terry’s Facebook, tracking numbers, hoping for some news, any news but it does not come.

We are approaching a year since purchase, many folks have moved, unsure if they will ever see their purchase. I hope we see movement soon.

Mr. Goodkind has taught us many great things through his novels and he has some amazing fans. It saddens me to see them lose faith in such a wonderful author due to a poor execution of a great package intended for his fans.

Soon, hopefully. We are waiting.

Until next time, if you have not discovered Terry Goodkind please check him out.

Update: The update we were waiting for has finally happened. The reasons for the delays were given and many questions were answered. Ultimately, this is what we wanted as fans of Terry Goodkind. I am still disappointed in the time it has taken to complete this project, but I am happy that we were finally updated. Looking forward to receiving this wonderful work of art.

I’m one of the “lucky” ones that managed to purchase the collectors edition and have experienced all the issues mentioned here. I’ve asked about this on TG’s facebook page, twice, and both posts got removed within 24 – 48 hours. I’ve emailed the TG team with an ultimatum of having the decency to reply to my emails or I will file a complaint… Haven’t heard anything as of yet.

I have had success by contacting Rob with Revel Studios. He recently got on the event page and updated everyone last week. Shoot him an email at rob@revelstudios.com. He responded to me and changed my address. It seems like we are still “close” to shipping. They switched to a third binding company because the first two could not give Terry a finished leather bound book he was proud of which delayed the project significantly. Why progress wasn’t related to us weekly is beyond me and would have made this while situation better. Rob has been great though, set if he can help.

The email updates work much better than anything else. At least that way they communicate with those that made the purchase. I understand production problems that can arise, but over a year seems to be much more than should be needed to overcome the issues. I thoroughly enjoy the work of Terry Goodkind and will continue to read his works. I will refrain from these endeavors in the future, however.

Thanks for this post. I was beginning to think I was the only one who got a shipping notice, but no shipment. Production setbacks aside, the lack of communication has been extremely frustrating. I emailed Rob just now. We’ll see if he responds. If I get more info, I’ll let you know.

I honestly don’t mind the wait. The only problem I have had is the lack of information given to us with the long delay. Had they made communication more important, most of us would be content with the wait. Looking forward to receiving the final product and hoping it’s soon. $300 was a big deal for me to spend.

I’m also one of the ‘lucky ones’ to purchase a $300 copy but have not gotten any emails about shipping or anything. The last I heard was in March and no one’s responded to my emails or messages on FB. I’ve just emailed “Rob” above and hope to get a response. What update did you guys receive in June? I got nothing!

Update from Rob was blasted out a few days ago. Hopefully, you all got this.

Direct from the email:

“Hello everyone. Thank you (again) for being so incredibly patient with us. It’s been a very long road to this point and we’ve had major disappointments and frustrations along the way. The good news is we finally have an accurate and we believe 100% dependable shipping date for all of the packages:

Friday, SEPTEMBER 27th.

The tracking numbers that were emailed to you previously are still your shipping and confirmation codes, including anyone that has had an address change. Keep those tracking details handy.

Last week, Terry Goodkind sent his Creative Director to the Northwest United States where he met with our biggest vendor to get replacement materials gathered, tested, approved and finalized. As most of you know, that has been our sticking point for many months now. We had most of the packages finished and assembled when we discovered we were under-delivered on vital material and worse, some of the materials used in other places proved to be more fragile than expected. Together, Terry’s CD and our vendor locked down a delivery date for replacement goods getting shipped to us. We then worked out a plan of attack to get the packages finished with all touches, everything boxed, and again prepared for shipment. We’ve allowed a few days for us to complete this process and that is how we arrived at September 27th as our expected shipment date.

We believe this date is firm. We do not anticipate this date to change for any reason. If we detect any possibility of this changing, we will immediately let everyone know so as to avoid repeating past disappointments.

We are bound and determined to have packages in everyone’s hands at the end of September and we look forward to sharing in that experience with all of you.

It is hard to imagine how we could possibly exceed your expectations after so many months of unexpected and grueling delays. We were let down and we in turn let you down. We’re sorry. It seems difficult to believe we can make it up to you, but we’re going to try.

The packages are significantly more than we promised and we hope everyone will recognize this was done out of respect for all of you and to show how much we appreciate you guys standing by us and being patient for so long. You deserve it.”

They’ve started posting pictures of receiving packages. Supposedly they have all been mailed out within the past few days. The facebook group is still active here My tracking information still hasn’t changed and it hasn’t arrived. I did however receive confirmation that my address had been changed.

There are around 7 or 8 packages received that have been advised to us by the purchasers, and we’ve heard from other purchasers that they have been told confidentially (by other purchasers) that there are others received as well. Rob said at one time there had been some 40+ packages received by people that haven’t posted (or don’t want to post publicly). He also has said recently that they’ve had to arrange new labels for around 240 packages, which suggests that around 60 now have probably been received. I didn’t get a label until 2 Jan 2014, and nothing changed to suggest it has ever been scanned at USPS (not FedEx). If new labels were arranged, wouldn’t all of the old ones now be cancelled? My original label still just shows as ‘electronic information received’, despite my being told by Rob that it had been shipped on 6th Feb. The problems with communication has been explained time and time again, yet still there have been no group emails sent. Individuals may or may not receive replies to their emails, and the information that they get (and often share) is the sort of info we all would like to know. Why waste time writing potentially dozens of individual emails when you can post one to all?